Modern automobiles are equipped with a wide variety of different forms of auxiliary equipment, usually electrically powered. This auxiliary equipment may include ventilators and heaters, complete air conditioning systems, electrically operated windows and windshield wipers, and many other types of apparatus. Auxiliary equipment of similar variety and complexity is utilized in other vehicles, including trucks, railroad cars, and the like. Thus, railroad cars may be equipped with special heaters or cooling equipment; the same may apply to trailers and other vehicle types. Throughout this specification and in the appended claims, the term "vehicle" is employed in a generic sense to encompass ordinary automobiles, electric vehicles, trucks, railroad locomotives and cars, trailers, and off-road vehicles as well.
Of course, the power to operate a heater, blower air conditioner, or other electrical appliance, on any vehicle, must come from some source. The usual and conventional source is the engine that drives the vehicle. In some instances, as in certain railway lighting and heating equipment, the power may be derived from rotation of the wheels; in the long run, however, the actual source is still the vehicle engine, since this is what powers the rotating wheels. In many instances, the auxiliary equipment may constitute an appreciable power drain for the vehicle engine and may add materially to its cost of operation.
Similarly, electrically powered vehicles are becoming more common as an alternative to petroleum burning combustion engines. Electric vehicles are powered from storage batteries which are recharged during periods of non-use. The present invention can be adapted to such vehicles to generate electricity to recharge the batteries recovering energy otherwise wasted and the term "auxiliary equipment" includes such equipment.
Appreciable amounts of energy developed by many vehicles are completely wasted. The wheels of any vehicle moving over irregular terrain, or over terrain of changing contour, inevitably undergo appreciable vertical movement in addition to the desired movement across the terrain. Virtually all vehicles, at present, are equipped with springs and shock absorbers to minimize the vertical movements of the vehicle body, allowing limited vertical movement of the body relative to the vehicle wheels. These springs and shock absorbers must dispose of the energy represented by the vertical movements of the vehicle; the energy is ordinarily dissipated in the form of heat radiated to the surrounding atmosphere.
In one previous proposal, in Howard et al Pat. No. 3,507,580, a limited part of the energy of vertical movement of an electric automobile is salvaged and used to aid in driving the vehicle. The Howard et al patent provides a pneumatic pump, connected in parallel with a suspension spring for the vehicle, which pumps air into a pressure reservoir. The pressurized air from the reservoir is used to drive one or more pneumatic motors used to operate a battery charger, a starter, or the like.